Thursday, January 19, 2006

Peter Beardsley for England (v Poland), 17 October 1990

If you are looking for the predictions, they are here. Up early this week!...

Following on a tangent from the previous post, here's a point that was made to me by a female friend of mine some time ago.

A lot of blokes between the age of 18 and 35 are good looking. I know it's all in the eye of the beholder, blah blah blah but a lot of guys of this age are decent enough looking fellas.

There are 44 teams in the top two divisions of British football. They have first team squads of, what, 20 players? So that's the best part of 900 blokes between the ages of 18 and 35, say.

Name more than about half a dozen that are good looking.

Now, I'm not a great authority on what constitutes a great looking young man, and so we will maybe have to turn to our female/gay readers at this point for assistance with disproving this theory or otherwise. But, whilst you could presumably name any number of pop stars, film stars or other celebs of that age that are regarded as good looking, try and do the same with footballers from the Premiership and Championship.

James Beattie, maybe? Thierry Henry? Freddie Ljungberg, I guess.

But then.....no-one. For every Thierry there are a busload of Crouches and Nevilles and Repkas and Radzinskis and Bents and Earnshaws (etc).

Why is this? And am I missing lots?

12 comments:

weenie said...

Ok...let's have a go, and it don't mean I fancy them or owt...:

1. James Beattie
2. Cristiano Ronaldo
3. David James
4. Steven Gerrard
5. Freddie Ljungberg
6. Jose Antonio Reyes
7. Dennis Bergkamp
8. Paul Robinson
*struggling now..errr...*
9. Tim Cahill
10. Hermann Hreidarsson

Can't think of any more. Far easier to name the Crouches and Nevilles.

LB said...

Arsenal's front line seems to be generally regarded as fit, then. Right.

Steven Gerrard? Really?

Tim Cahill looks like he's walked into a door at some speed. Dear oh dear.

swisslet said...

according to C.

Thierry Henry
Freddie Ljunberg ("I suppose")

At this point she ran out of ideas, and I had to start making suggestions:

Ryan Giggs is "too hairy" apparently.
Frank Lampard "no"
Steven Gerrard "are you serious?"
Rooney, Terry, Owen, Shearer... no, no, no, no.

and that was about the extent of it. I couldn't really think of anyone else to suggest who wasn't really ugly, and she couldn't think of anyone else worth mentioning.

Outside of England, I'm told that Santiago Solari is a bit of a looker.

ST

swisslet said...

....newsflash.....

she likes Jose Mourinho ("in a silver fox kind of way")

He's not a player, but there you go.

ST

LB said...

my colleague Lisa says that Gareth Taylor (now at Crewe) is OK.

and Liam Lawrence at Sunderland.

The suggestion of Cristiano Ronaldo, however, is causing some amusement. Sorry, Weenie....

LB said...

I am also reliably informed that Jason Roberts and Michael Owen are Ok.

And, apparently, Matthew Taylor (Portsmouth left back) is romantically linked with Will Young. (two people independently in my office have just told me this). Eh?

weenie said...

Ok ok, can I reiterate that I don't fancy any of these, although James Beattie is probably the only one that even vaguely resembles the boyfriend. I'm sure there are guys out there who would love to look like Ronaldo...not that I know any!

weenie said...

And Steven Gerrard...perhaps I'm blinded by hero worship...

Ben said...

Off the top of my head...

Starting at home: Steven Taylor, Scott Parker and Albert Luque? And the other half of my B&W&RAO co-writer would jump into bed with Shay Given if he snapped his fingers...

Further afield: Asier Del Horno? Wayne Bridge? Xavi Alonso? Joe Cole? Trevor Sinclair? Mikael Arteta? Guiseppe Rossi? Michael Carrick?

I would enlist the help of my other half, but she's not exactly au fait with footballers - so these suggestions are, er, mine.

Charby said...

Scott Parker definately - until he went away to Chelsea and now strangely he resembles the back end of a bus.
Jonaton Johanssons cute too, as is Jon Spector - Not that I fancy them or anything!
They're the only ones I can think of off the top of my head.

Alex said...

I'd think about "crossing the road" for Jamie Redknapp...

And Gareth Taylor is a bit of a cutie.

;-)

Anonymous said...

Uh...

Sheesh.

I think Terry's all right, in that "recently slapped" sort of way.

I could name a handful of Premiership guys (Joe Cole, Giggs, Owen) whom I'd go so far as to call "generically handsome." None of them are, however, remotely attractive to me-- especially Owen, who's got some sort of undefinable but loathsome Ben Affleck quality to him.

Milan Baros has a certain degree of androgynous charm. Hyypia's okay. There is always Cisse for people who dig alternative hair.

I agree with the essential point. The fact that I can name three or four attractive guys playing football in England is mostly a sign that I have strange taste.